The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes by Various
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page 3 of 227 (01%)
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The poem is the first of the great French heroic poems known as "chansons de geste." It is written in stanzas of various length, bound together by the vowel-rhyme known as assonance. It is not possible to reproduce effectively this device in English, and the author of the present translation has adopted what is perhaps the nearest equivalent--the romantic measure of Coleridge and Scott. Simple almost to bareness in style, without subtlety or high imagination, the Song of Roland is yet not without grandeur; and its patriotic ardor gives it a place as the earliest of the truly national poems of the modern world._ THE SONG OF ROLAND PART I THE TREASON OF GANELON SARAGOSSA. THE COUNCIL OF KING MARSIL I The king our Emperor Carlemaine, |
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